Dogs get a reprieve at Guilford County brewpubs

News broke last week via Facebook that the Guilford County Department of Health had come down on Joymongers Brewing Co.—my neighborhood pub for the record—for allowing dogs inside. In case you’ve been out of the loop, dogs inside brewpubs is the trend these days.

The news created a firestorm, with politicos such as County Commissioner Justin Conrad and state Rep. Jon Hardister promising to look into it. The problem as I understand it–is state law has not addressed the issue of dogs inside brewpubs that have no kitchen or food prep stations. So the county was allowed to make the call on its own, and they came down against our canine friends. My guess is–perhaps I’m wrong–that there were complaints about dogs from other patrons. I’ve heard more than one story of dogs eyeballing each other in the brewpub and deciding not to take the dispute outside. Or perhaps government decided to just randomly clamp down on private business setting its own rules within its doors. That happens too.

Guilford County Commissioner Justin Conrad said he spoke with Guilford County Health Director Merle Green about the issue on Thursday night, Feb. 14, after many people had discussed the situation with him. On Friday, Feb. 15, Conrad said that Green is going to give Joymongers permission to continue allowing dogs at its establishment as a “stop-gap” fix while the state legislature does its work in addressing the taproom classification issue.

“Some people were reaching out to me and I reached out to her and she was willing to allow this,” Conrad said of the reprieve for dogs.

He said Joymongers had been informed.

“She has been in communication with the owner-manager,” he said.

Conrad also said that the dog ban was anti-common sense and anti-business and the commissioner added that he’s glad to see people coming together to find a solution.